How To Remember 90% Of Everything You Learn

Whether you’re learning Spanish, a new instrument,
or a new sport, we could all benefit from accelerated learning. But the problem
is, there’s only so much time in the day.

The key to accelerated learning is not just
putting in more hours, but maximizing the effectiveness of the time
spent learning.

The Bucket And Water Analogy

Let’s say you were to fill up a bucket with water.
Most buckets should not have any problem retaining the water inside, until
it starts overflowing at the top.

But in reality, this isn’t how our brains
function. In fact, most of the information that enters our brain leaks out
eventually. Instead of looking at our brain’s memory as a bucket
that retains everything, we should treat it for what it is: a leaking
bucket.

While the leaky bucket analogy may sound like a
negative connotation, it’s perfectly normal. Unless you were born with a
photographic memory, our brains weren’t designed to remember every
fact, information, or experience that we go through in our lives.

How To Remember 90% Of Everything You Learn

The development of the Learning Pyramid in the
1960’s — widely attributed to the NTL Institute in Bethel, Maine—
outlined how humans learn.

5% of what they learn when they’ve learned from a
lecture (i.e. university/college lectures)10% of what they learn when they’ve learned
from reading (i.e. books, articles)20% of what they learn from audio-visual (i.e.
apps, videos)30% of what they learn when they see a
demonstration50% of what they learn when engaged in a group
discussion.75% of what they learn when they practice what
they learned.90% of what they learn when they use
immediately (or teach others)

Yet how do most of us learn?

Books, classroom lectures, videos — non-interactive
learning methods that results in 80-95% of information going in one ear and
leaking out the other.

The point here is that instead of forcing our
brains on how to remember more information with “passive” methods, we
should focus our time, energy, and resources on “participatory” methods that
have proven to deliver more effective results, in less time.

This means that:

If you want to learn how to speak a foreign
language, you should focus on speaking with native speakers and gain
immediate feedback (instead of mobile apps)

If you want to get in shape, you should work
with a personal fitness trainer (instead of watching Youtube workout
videos)

If you want to learn a new instrument, hire a
local music teacher in your city

Ultimately, it comes down to this…

Time Or Money?

How many times have you heard someone say, “I
don’t have time to do X…”

I’m certainly guilty of this myself, as I’ve made
excuse after excuse about the lack of time I have in my life.

But time is the greatest equalizer of
all. No matter who we are, where we are in the world, or how much we
strive for efficiency, there are only 24 hours in each day. Every single minute
is unique, and once it’s gone, it can never be regained, unlike money.

“You May Delay, But Time Will Not.”― Benjamin Franklin

So if we all have 24 hours in a day, how do we
explain the success stories of young millionaires that started from nothing, or
a full-time student going from beginner to conversation fluency in Spanish
after just 3.5 months? They learned how to maximize for effectiveness instead
of only efficiency.

Let’s say person A spent one hour learning a
language and retained 90% of what they learned. And person B spent
nine hours learning and retained 10% of what they learned. Doing
simple math, person B spent 9x more time learning than person A, only to retain
the same amount of information (A: 1 * 0.9 = B: 9 * 0.1).

While the exact numbers can be debated, the
lesson is clear. The way to have more time is not to go for small wins,
like watching 5-minute YouTube tutorials instead of 15-minutes, but to go for
big wins, like choosing the most effective method from the beginning. Or
constantly relying on free alternatives, when investing in a premium
solution can shave off months, if not years, worth of struggles, mistakes,
and most importantly, time.

It’s making the most out of the limited time we
have by focusing on solutions that deliver the most impact, and saying no to
everything else.

The ability to retain more knowledge in an age of
infinite access to information and countless distractions is a powerful skill
to achieve any goal we have faster.

By learning how to remember more information
everyday, we can spend less time re-learning old knowledge, and focus on
acquiring new ones.

We’re all running out of time, and today is the
youngest you’ll ever be. The question is: how will you best spend it?